I think Connerly's rationale is that, by far, the biggest perpetrator of racial discrimination these days is the government. By forbidding the government from recording people's race, we make it much more difficult for them to discriminate on that basis. Since government dominates education and is the largest employer, that would indeed be a huge step toward a color blind society.
You misunderstand the racial privacy initiative. It does not prevent the government from being able to detect discrimination. Anyone who feels that he's been discriminated against can still seek redress. The RPI does not prevent a court from handling racial discrimination cases. What the RPI does do is prevent someone from saying, "Hmmm, Hispanics are 30% of the population, but only 27% of the employees in this Department. Better hire more Latinos."
I understand that the initiative does not prevent lawsuits. What I'm saying is that lawsuits and other measures require good (that is, widely and systematically collected) data in order to be (a) initiated and (b) successful. You can't just say, "If we eliminate race from our vocabulary, then racism will disappear." Racism -- including racism on the part of government agencies -- will still exist, but the opponents of racism will have fewer (or worse) weapons.
Setting aside the fact that the proposal takes the form of a constitutional amendment I'm wondering whether there's any basis to attack it. If consideration of race in govt. affairs (broadly) is prohibited in CA, can it be attacked on the basis that private plaintiffs against the govt. will lose out on data they otherwise would have access to to prove discrimination OR can it be attacked on the basis that this information could become relevant in the event prop. 209 goes away---even past racial data is relevant to fashioning an race conscious program. This is fascinating and is a road many other states will likely go down.
On a separate note, I previously posted a comment and it disappeared. Maybe I said something to offend. Unlikely. Just wanted to let you all know.
Thanks for the heads up on the disappearing comment. It definitely wasn't deleted.